Flipping Paranoia in the Archives

• In Event: Cracking Open Archival Bodies: Being, Knowing, Moving

Abstract

This paper traces Kaia Sand’s affective encounters with, and subsequent poetic, performative, and embodied transformations of police surveillance documents on women activist groups amassed by the Portland Police Bureau (1960-1980). Through collaging sentences from the documents beginning with the word “she,” Sand created She Had Her Own Reason for Participating, a multi-dimensional poem that exists on sledgehammered copper plates, a typewritten paper scroll, and as a spoken-word performance piece. This paper discusses how through her poem, Sand indexes the fear the police spies had about women, challenges and effaces the controlling intentions of the police, and commemorates women struggling for rights.

Presenter

• Kathy Carbone, UCLA